Aiding in Africa is his goal

Youth works to put roofs on schools.

Youth works to put roofs on schools.

July 17, 2006|SUSAN HARRISON WOLFFIS The Muskegon Chronicle

MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) -- On an extraordinary day in February, David VanderMeer, 12, confessed his heart was breaking. He and his father, the Rev. Greg VanderMeer, were in Uganda at the time, halfway around the world from their comfortable home in Muskegon where David's dad is lead pastor of Fellowship Reformed Church, and David is a sixth grader at Reeths-Puffer Intermediate School. Father and son were on a mission trip with six other men from their church, visiting various congregations of the Church of Uganda which Fellowship Reformed members help to support financially. "I was, like, the youngest there," David says. "My dad thought it would be cool if I came along." Day after day, he would climb into the pulpit and introduce himself through an interpreter -- a boy 14 years old -- who'd translate David's English into Swahili. "Hi, my name is David VanderMeer," the boy from Muskegon would say. "I'm here to preach the gospel." More than once, David's father says, the men in the group -- Ugandans and Americans alike -- whispered to one another in the way grown-ups do when they suspect they're seeing the future: "Look at those two young pastors." The Muskegon men's visit to Uganda was no random mission trip. For the past several years, the people of aiding Fellowship Reformed Church have helped support the ministry of the Rev. Stephen Kaziimba, provost and dean of the cathedral of the Church of Uganda, which has its roots in the Anglican Church of England. Kaziimba -- whose son, Moses, was David's interpreter -- traveled with the group to introduce the eight Christians from the United States to those worshipping in Uganda. But their journey also took them outside the walls of the church and into several schools in some of Uganda's poorest regions. There, David was in classrooms so crowded, the children had to stand. There was simply no room for the 60 students to sit. There were no desks or books, no chairs or chalkboards. Nor was there a roof on their school. The builders had run out of money long before they could complete the church-supported school in Nswambwe, a town in southern Uganda. In a school in Nakoosi, which was even poorer than in Nswambwe, children sat in a stick structure battered by the elements and on the verge of collapse. They sat on a floor made of cow dung and mud, fighting chiggers that burrowed into their skin. Again, there were no desks, no paper on which to write, no pencils even if there had been paper. "Wow," David remembers saying. "I was amazed by that. I've never seen schools so bad." Nor had he seen such crushing poverty and need. Half of the estimated 800 children in the schools in Nswambwe and Nakoosi are orphans. Most of the children have no shoes. Most arrive at school in the morning with no food or water for the entire day, forced to rely on whatever the school and church can provide -- often no more than a bowl of rice. "I think it was disturbing to David," his dad says. At every stop, David was the first white child the youngsters from Uganda had ever met. "That was the blessing of David being along," his dad says. The contingent from Fellowship Reformed Church also visited schools and communities that weren't in as desperate straits, but when David compared his life to the lives of the children he met, he didn't know where to begin. "At this one school, the kids use tied-up banana leaves for their soccer ball," he says. The VanderMeers had taken along several sets of soccer jerseys, donated by the Laketon Youth Soccer program, to give to the students. The children forced to play with tied-up banana leaves cried at the sight. So did the headmaster. They'd never been allowed to compete with other soccer teams because they didn't have uniforms. "The headmaster said if God can give us a gift like this, the kids will learn what it's like to have hope," David says. One night when they were alone and having a heart-to-heart talk they'll both remember for the rest of their lives, Greg VanderMeer asked his son if he'd ever consider returning to Uganda on another mission trip. David thought awhile before he answered. "It's so hard to be here, Dad," he said. "My heart is breaking." He didn't know it yet on that extraordinary day in February, but young David VanderMeer would soon discover a cure to heal his hurting child's heart. During a church service before the men from Fellowship Reformed Church returned home, Bishop Paul Kizito -- one of 20 bishops in the Church of Uganda -- "commissioned" them to do God's work as "ambassadors" of the church. Then Kizito turned to the 12-year-old boy and proclaimed: "Surely you've come here for a reason. You not only are an ambassador of Christ. You are an ambassador of Uganda's children." Perhaps it was those words that sparked what came next, or maybe it was walking into his own classroom when David returned home. Someplace along the way, young David VanderMeer decided to raise the money to put a roof on the school in Nswambwe and to rebuild the structure in Nakoosi. Kaziimba estimated the cost at $10,500 -- a sum David pledged to raise by September. He's already halfway to his goal. He calls his project Yesu Afaayo -- Swahili for "Jesus Cares."